04

The FR 235 is a great GPS + heart-rate tracker for running and cycling. There are cheaper alternatives (notably from TomTom). If your budget allows for this model, buy it ($330 here). You won’t regret it.

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Several very thorough reviews have been written that go into the Garmin 235’s features in great depth — if you want a long version I recommend the one at dcrainmaker. On this page I offer you, by contrast, a (very) short review of the Garmin Forerunner 235 fitness tracker/GPS watch based on daily real-world experience. I bought one with my own money, and use it for my own running.

Footnote: I’m a 30-something guy with a desk job who trail-runs 2x per week. If you are seriously into triathlon or swimming you may want something more fancy like a Fenix 5.

Bottom Line:

The Garmin 235 is a good-looking runner’s/cyclist’s watch that focuses on core functionality, which it does very well. It also has smartwatch features but never lets these detract from its core functionality. Fitness trackers and smart watches are still evolving at a rapid pace – every year brings new models with better performance, new features and better designs. Unless you’re rolling in cash I’d recommend rather buy mid-range and update every few years than splurge on a titanium-and-sapphire range-topping watch like the Fenix 5.

My Garmin 235 (Marsala colour). That display is just beautiful in the sun (here in standby mode with classic watch face)

While the script seems to have worked pretty well for most of you for the past three (!) years, there was actually a bit of a bug in it, making it not work for non-white backgrounds. This is now fixed!

In addition to fixing the bug, I’ve added a few new features including

Ability to set output JPEG quality

Setting a base name manually

Manually selecting the background colour (in case the auto-selection doesn’t work as it should)

06

As a photographer I see my camera as a tool with which to capture and create. As an engineer, I see my camera as a wonderful machine and opto-electric toy. But sometimes a situation arises that makes a camera into a scientific tool. To make visible some hidden property of reality itself.

After this poetic introduction, it might seem a little mundane to tell you that this post is about the steam the comes out of my coffee machine. And in fact you don’t even need a camera – this is something that you can see with your naked eye. We own a Delonghi Icona home espresso machine, which looks like this:Like most machines of this type it has a milk frother side-arm (on the right), that can be used for making cappuccinos. It works by forcing hot steam out at high velocity. The steam’s velocity is controlled by a valve which one opens by turning the round black knob on top.

06

This year (2013-2014) is a good time for seeing the Aurora Borealis (and its lesser-known Southern twin, the Aurora Australis) – commonly known as the Northern- and Southern Lights. I have my heart set on seeing the Lights with my own eyes in the coming year, so in this post I’d like to talk about how one can best prepare for capturing this natural wonder.

A friend, Bart Vastenhouw, travelled to the region of Varanger in Norway to see and photograph the lights. Here is one of the photographs he came back with:

Bart captured this beautiful scene using a Canon 40D and Canon 10-22mm F3.5-4.5 wide-angle lens. The 40D was a good camera, but these days there are better ones to choose from. The lens is decent too, but for best results you’d want a wide angle with larger aperture (F2.8 or faster).

03

Yesterday, Nikon released new firmware for almost all of its current DSLR line-up, namely for the D4, D800, D600, D3, D3s, D3x, D7000 and D3200. Most of these updates only add full compatibility to the exotic new 800mm f/5.6E FL ED VR lens – a lens very few people will ever see or use.

The highlight, for me, is the fact that Nikon has now finally addressed the uncompressed HDMI bug that frustrated D600 videographers. This issue used to be a reason for DSLR videographers to get the more expensive D800, and seemed like a lame up-selling scam on Nikon’s part. No more, it seems!